Bedmates
by Isabelle
Summary: On the night before the fight with the First, Buffy remembers her last night with Spike.


**Bedmates** by Isabelle

Rating: PG

Fandom: Buffy

Ship: Spike/Buffy

Quickie: On the night before the fight with the First, Buffy remembers her last night with Spike.

Prompt: for happyfix, who requested it

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She'll remember that night. Always. It was an odd night, an odd conversation. Not because the conversation itself was odd, but because it was them. It was him and her, and they had never just talked like this. It was like an awakening. A new beginning. A renewal. She should've known it would all be taken away, she should've known that whatever power wrote her life, chose her paths, would not let her keep him. He was in her heart and, once her heart is breached, the strings that tied them would forever hold her captive.

It was the last night they spent in one another's arms. As lovers, they had not been much of cuddlers. She couldn't remember just holding one another and sensing the other drift to sleep. No sex, just… love. They were odd, strange creatures, the both of them. Too tinted by the world and its falling horizon to ever truly be able to function normally. She swore she felt his soul beating against the rhythm of her heart, and if it had truly been his soul, she would consider it beautiful.

She sometimes wondered what William had been like. Had he been a good man? Had he opened doors for ladies? Had he been brash and bold? Had he been a drinker? He'd lived a million lives compared to her short one. Yet she was all he wanted, regardless of the endless wonders he had witnessed, of the endless wonders he had created. To a girl whose existence was always hanging by a thread, always on the balance, night after night, slay after slay – it was a wondrous thing. A wondrous thing that she never admitted.

He had beautiful eyebrows. She remembers that, remembers it fondly.

How many heartbreaks can a girl survive? How many loves can one lose? How many before she ceases to believe in love? She thinks she stopped at one point believing in love. She thinks she was bitter and alone and cold. She thinks she waited for a warm human body to fill that cold void. She thinks she got what she least expected.

She thinks she was firmly looking to the east as he came strutting from the west. He danced before her, a mating ritual old as time itself, and she rebuffed him as any female would. But dances moved to caresses, moved to declarations of love, and – before she knew it – her skin hungered for his as much as his did for hers. She was a creature of habit if she'd ever seen one.

He had beautiful hands. Skilled hands, able to bring her earth-shattering pleasure, able to help her forget, able to remind her of who and what she was and how she was magnificent in her unnaturalness. Buffy was always the hero, she knew this, she lived this, but every once in a while it was a wonder to be saved.

His hands, kneading her skin, flushing her body, making her long for a time when she could spend endless days and nights lingering in the scent of his skin as soft sheets embraced her own.

And she remembers his eyes, ones that sported a color beyond description as they would change like the moody amethyst. When he hated her, he hated her. When he loved her, he loved her.

"For a slayer in need of renewal, you're certainly not sleeping." His voice was thick with sleep, and it made her smile.

"I'm just… renewing my batteries." She smiled slightly, her lashes batting.

His thumb, brought forth by beautiful hands, caressed her cheek. "Sleep with me," he said, and it was low and dark and inviting.

"I am," she insisted, but failed miserably in her conviction.

"Close your eyes," he requested and pressed his forehead to hers. "I want you to remember this."

"Remember what?" She asked, voice just as low as his – as if he was letting her in on a little, well-kept secret. Her lids closed, and she felt the intimacy of that moment. And she thought that she felt his soul then. And it was beautiful.

"Just this…" And he was fast asleep. Forehead to forehead. Soul to soul.

She remembered the feeling it gave her soul. This utter and complete cherishment from this creature that was not even supposed to be able to love. From this man who defied it. She remembered, years later, and she finally understood his words.

She always slept with them in her mind.

"_Sleep with me."_

Night after night. Year after year. She always did.

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The end


End file.
